I has data!
So I've been working from home, seeing as I have a few papers to read through and a whole bunch of spectral absorption and emission lines to assign (and conveniently, the database for that is online).
"Vermillion" is an odd star. But I knew that already. If it was an average star, I probably wouldn't be looking at spectra from it. Thus far, I've found several Fraunhofer lines, notably H-alpha, Na-D and a couple of O2 lines. I've also identified an absorption band for the C2 Swan system (which i what I was after). Nothing too out of the ordinary there, but a few things seem a bit peculiar. I need to figure out more about what I'm looking for. There's a hell of a lot of this spectrum still to decode. I'll admit that hunting through atomic line databases is a little tedious, but it's worth it to see what you find.
I'm still hoping it'll turn out to be some unusual kind of variable. How cool would it be to discover a rare type of star!
Supernova Condensate is a blog about our place in the Universe; astronomy, chemistry and life in the great bubble of academia.
Invader Xan is a proto-astrochemist, trying to figure out how to be a scientist. He looks for molecules in space and studies the sciences of all things very big and very small.
"When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong."
-- R Buckminster Fuller
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Comments
All of those lists and databases really do look like a recipe for a good time. I wish you luck :)
Heh... it's one of those things in pretty much any branch of science -- you need to fight your way through the dull part to get to the interesting bits!